Johanna, who was taken to table by a young and rather silent lieutenant, looked on in silence. The place on her other side was empty. At last a young man appeared, who, when greeted by Batti with reproaches for his tardiness, excused himself on the plea of urgent work for his newspaper. Batti signed to him to take the vacant seat beside Johanna, and presented him to her as Dr. Edgar Stein. "At last, Fräulein!" he said. "You have been invisible for so long, while our friend Batti has been unwearied in his wondrous tales of you, that I began to regard you as a mythical being 'veiled in lovely legend.'" Johanna mutely inclined her head. The round, red face of the man, with its bold blue eyes and cynical smile, made a most disagreeable impression upon her. Helena, who sat opposite, laughed in a constrained manner. "What has Batti been saying?" she asked. "We must certainly find out, Johanna." "Why, he described the Fräulein half as one of the bold horsewomen,--Wodan's daughters,--half as a Saint Elizabeth,--cheering the sad, healing the sick, and so forth; then half as an aristocratic lady, half as an artiste. And from what I see I believe it all." Whereupon Dr. Stein bowed, and laughed as if in derision of his own words. "Johanna, you ought to be proud!" cried Helena. "Dr. Stein[1] is usually quite what his name signifies towards women." [Footnote 1: Anglicé, _stone_.] "But not towards you, fairest dame!" he replied. "You never deigned to notice me, poor, pale moon among the stars that circle about your sunlike majesty." As he spoke, his glance seemed to ridicule all present. Helena smiled contented; Johanna felt more and more disgusted. And although the young man, strong in his armour of self-conceit, never suspected the sensation he inspired, he could not but perceive that he was far from producing upon Johanna the impression he had intended, and he was not the man to forgive this. The talk grew louder and freer. Even in her father's house this had sometimes occurred; but Johanna had never felt disturbed by the conversation there, where the refinement of the host had always restrained the mirth and frivolity of his guests within certain limits. But who was there to do that here? At last she could bear it no longer, and, while a toast was being drunk standing, she contrived to withdraw unperceived; and the next morning she explained that she could not leave Lisbeth so late at night again. The child had discovered the absence of her beloved nurse, had cried bitterly, and had not slept until some time after Johanna's return. Henceforth Batti was obliged to content himself with the daily ride which the physician ordered for the young girl, and which she herself would have been sorry to omit.